A continuation of the engine thread -- 60 new engines and transmissions?????????
(1) How does introducing a new engine improve fuel economy/emissions?
(2) What new principals of physics have been discovered that required new engine design?
(3) What new production techniques such as ultra thin wall casting or new materials have been developed that justify new engine designs?
(4) How much of this cost is the taxpayer going to pick up through corporate R&D deductions? As a follow-on, how many new jobs will be generated in the US to manufacture these new engines and transmissions?
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Ford enters 2010, it plans to aggressively pursue its goal to become the nation?s fuel-economy leader by introducing nine new or upgraded engines and six new transmissions on its cars and trucks.
Samardzich said the engines and transmissions are part of a five-year plan aimed at introducing 60 new engines and transmissions between 2008 and 2013.
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Unka George (George McDuffee) .............................. The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there. L. P. Hartley (1895-1972), British author. The Go-Between, Prologue (1953).
Engineers design for the lowest cost. When fuel is expensive, one can spend more on the engine to increase economy. In this case Ford is going to direct injection and turbocharging. Both of these cost more money, but allow a smaller engine to be as powerful as a larger engine and use less fuel.
I suspect direct injection requires better microprocessors for the control. But the main driver is higher fuel costs, mean it is worthwhile to increase engine costs if it improves economy. Having a smaller engine will also mean less weight and that will also increase fuel economy.
There are some new materials as ceramics that allow higher operating temperatures. And that justifies new engine designs. However I did not see any mention of this in connection with the new Ford engines.
Congress has passed huge stimulas packages to encourage energy savings. Think of this as part of the stimulas package. It generates jobs for those that design engines and engine production lines. The new engines are more complex, so will have more labor costs associated with them. But probably will not generate a lot of new jobs for the production.
But the big follow on will be better fuel economy. Congress is trying to promote energy savings to lessen the dependence on imported oil. Increasing the fuel economy of cars and trucks will have as large an effect as increasing the number of solar panels to generate electric power.
As Ford enters 2010, it plans to aggressively pursue its goal to
What a waste! Sure, new IC technology is cool but there are diminishing returns. The future is Electric! Imagine hundreds or thousands of nuke plants supplying cheap power. If the environmentalists and those telling them what to think and do had not destroyed the will of the US to forge ahead in all those related technologies, imagine where we would be.
Not new physics; new mechanics. Go to the SAE website and search on "direct injection," "stratified charge," and, for the medium-term, "HCCI" (homogeneous-charge, compression ignition"). Remember those model airplane "diesel" engines, which actually were carbureted, rather than injected, but which used compression ignition? Yep. They're the future.
It's a revolution that's making big improvements in fuel economy -- actually, about three of them in a row, if you include the new generation of turbo diesels, which combine several new ideas.
Those aren't the justifications. See above.
Probably more than a few.
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As Ford enters 2010, it plans to aggressively pursue its goal to
"Rick" wrote in news:TJednYBEHpmubtTWnZ2dnUVZ snipped-for-privacy@giganews.com:
(1) How does introducing a new engine improve fuel economy/emissions?
The new Gasoline Direct Injected and Turbo Gasoline Direct Injected engines are a large leap in technology over current engines. Up to 20% more efficient with the power of a much larger more cylindered contemporary engine. In order to implement GDI or TGDI, a redesign of pretty much the entire engine is required.
This answers question #3, it's not new casting techniques (although some are required for the GDI/TGDI engines) or new materials.
With GDI/TGDI the cylinder loads are an order of magnitude larger than previous engines.
These engines are running 12:1 or higher compresssion ratios on 87 octane pump gas. This is possible because of the cooling effect of the charge as it enters the cylinder from the injector. As the (relatively) cool fuel enters the cylinder, it absorbs gobs of calories in order to vaporize. This prevents predenotation. This also creates several issues with internal components of the engine.
You also have an entirely different flow path required for the air entering the cylinder and a different path needed during the compression stroke. This requires a redesign of the combustion chamber and intake / exhaust tracts.
The key technology that allowed this revolution is the injectors. Until now, there was no injector capable of withstanding the environment and operating conditions inside of the cylinder of a gasoline engine. Now there are two companies (Bosch and Siemens) with proven, reliable injectors for direct placement inside the combustion cylinder. (Answer to question #2)
Your talking about stresses in the engine very akin to a diesel engine, but with much higher RPM's.
(2) What new principals of physics have been discovered that required new engine design?
(3) What new production techniques such as ultra thin wall casting or new materials have been developed that justify new engine designs?
(4) How much of this cost is the taxpayer going to pick up through corporate R&D deductions? As a follow-on, how many new jobs will be generated in the US to manufacture these new engines and transmissions?
Research has been ongoing on this for years, this is just the first mass introduction of the technology. These injectors and what not were developed in the motorsports (F1 for one) arenas over the last several years.
In the near future, you'll see 2.0L 4 cylinder engines with 225-300 hp with good low end torque and perfect driveability. They will include newer technlogies such as variable displacement turbochargers, variable cams on both intake and exhaust, very lightweight valves, internal cooling gallery pistons, servo controlled, extremely quick acting EGR and other technologies that will allow much improved economy and emissions from current tech.
Engineers design for the lowest cost. When fuel is expensive, one can spend more on the engine to increase economy. In this case Ford is going to direct injection and turbocharging. Both of these cost more money, but allow a smaller engine to be as powerful as a larger engine and use less fuel.
I suspect direct injection requires better microprocessors for the control. But the main driver is higher fuel costs, mean it is worthwhile to increase engine costs if it improves economy. Having a smaller engine will also mean less weight and that will also increase fuel economy.
Electronic engine control is going to replace mechanical control and improve over all performance, even in the small engine market. Freescale has a free video course on thier engine controllers :
Are we all going to stop driving while we wait for the new nukes to be designed, approved and built and waste disposal for said nukes to be designed, built and approved? Are we going to wait for Solar, wind and wave energy to get to maybe 20% of our energy requirements? I don't see a headlong rush into the massive spending needed for all of the above plus smart power grids. I think we will still be using Diesel power for trucks and gasoline for cars for a few more years yet. May as well make them a efficient as possible. Might still need a few diesels trucks for a while...at least to pick up the stranded electric vehicles on the side of the road with dead batterys:)
Let the Record show that "Buerste" on or about Sun, 10 Jan 2010 11:30:08 -0500 did write/type or cause to appear in rec.crafts.metalworking the following:
I think there maybe room for improvement in IC, but ...I'm not a engineer. OTOH, I do see some interesting developments being made in the use of nuclear sources for power supply - nuclear batteries and the like. And it does occure to me, why not make a small n-power plant that would fit in an automobile, and use that to produce the juice to make the wheels go round?
On a side note: apparently, the Transformers on the power poles need that slack time at night to cool off. Recharging electric cars is not going to allow that time. More wear and tear on the grid.
pyotr
- pyotr filipivich We will drink no whiskey before its nine. It's eight fifty eight. Close enough!
Are we all going to stop driving while we wait for the new nukes to be designed, approved and built and waste disposal for said nukes to be designed, built and approved? Are we going to wait for Solar, wind and wave energy to get to maybe 20% of our energy requirements? I don't see a headlong rush into the massive spending needed for all of the above plus smart power grids. I think we will still be using Diesel power for trucks and gasoline for cars for a few more years yet. May as well make them a efficient as possible. Might still need a few diesels trucks for a while...at least to pick up the stranded electric vehicles on the side of the road with dead batterys:)
******************************************************* And, for on-board IC generator for charging. But my point is that we should already HAVE these nuke plants! Look at how the French do nuke, they produce almost no waste.
Electric will only be the future for cars if we do several expensive things simultaneously. First, we have to seriously beef up the whole national electric grid, by a factor of 10 or more.
There are wide swaths of the Midwest where wind turbines would be very productive, and many rivers that could easily be harnessed for hydroelectric power - but there is no way to ship the energy to the east and west coasts where most of the demand is.
Then once we have the electricity supply available everywhere, we can electrify two or three lanes of the highways - the one big bugaboo with electric cars is range to empty. But if the car has an inductive pickup system to get power (and lane-tracking guidance) from the highway lane, you only need to run on the batteries for the local jaunts at each end of your trip.
Next step to freeing ourselves from foreign oil is to electrify all the freight railroads across the country, and they need the beefed up national power grid for that, too.
Heliostat solar power generation, but that has to be built in remote unpopulated valleys where people aren't staring at the big glowing boiler on top of the tower...
Then we find several suitable spots like a canyon off Lake Mead to build into a huge pumped-storage system, to store all that wind and solar energy when there is a surplus, and release it at night...
That would be fine, but for the roving bands of NIMBYs protesting each and every one...
Several to dozens would be fine, but hundreds isn't going to happen. And they need to be sited in out of the way areas, to avoid the problem above. Which will work fine, if the grid is robust enough to ship the power to the large towns.
Getting back to the subject - Any of those 9 new engines alternative fuels? CNG and LNG are practical, Hydrogen.... not so much.
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